Mobile Soul
by Ski-Ming
Summary: It is said that you shouldn't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Well, you shouldn't judge a woman until you've driven over a thousand miles in her car. After almost a year in Florida, Sandy gets a chance to speak.
1. Jayne Mansfield

Mobile Soul_  
by Ski-Ming_

Disclaimer: _The Outsiders_ and all of its characters are the property of S.E. Hinton and various publishers and media distributors.

Author's notes: Information on Jayne Mansfield (whom I find fabulous) can be found here: imdb DOT com/name/nm0543790/ And I know she wasn't _really_ decapitated, but reporters at the time sure seemed to think so.

I'm interested in the vilification of Sandy in the fandom. Now I love Sodapop as much as the next fangirl, but I'm writing this story to see the world from Sandy's perspective. Women tend to be placed on a Madonna-whore binary in our culture – you are either a prude or a slut, with no in-betweens – and it's done by men and other women. Just something to think about. Reviews are always welcomed.

* * *

I'm empty and aching and I don't know why  
Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike  
They've all come to look for America  
All come to look for America  
All come to look for America

– Simon and Garfunkel, "America," 1968

* * *

**Chapter One**

The day Jayne Mansfield's head got cut off in a car wreck and my boss called me a slut for dropping a tray of glasses, I decided that I had exactly three things to live for: Redbud, the Blue Pumpkin, and leaving that hayseed town forever.

I always liked Jayne more than Marilyn Monroe. When I was seven, my daddy took me to see _Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? _at the Nightly Double. I wanted to be just like the gorgeous bombshell with the big tough smile, even though her voice sounded like nails on a blackboard sometimes. The men all loved her anyways. I don't think girls were supposed to like Jayne Mansfield, much less want to be her. Mom got real mad when she caught me playing dress-up with about half a pound of eye makeup on, shaking my hips and singing in her scratchy voice. Once when Soda and I were double-dating with Steve and Evie, – this was years after the dress-up – Steve almost spat out his mouthful of Pepsi when I said Jayne was my favorite actress. "She's mine too!" he yelled, laughing, "and she is for all the other guys who read _Playboy_!"

When I was saying goodbye to Evie and the other girls before I went to Florida, they all acted real sorry for me and told me I could stay with any of them if I wanted to, but I knew they were all jealous I was getting out. "At least you get to go to the beach," said Evie, as if I'd won a dream vacation to Hawaii. I pointed out that in a couple of months there was no way I would be caught dead in a bathing suit. I guess if you have a reputation like mine or Jayne's, and people think you're lucky, they hate you twice as much.

As I stepped off the bus my folks had put me on that was supposed to take me away from Tulsa forever, the damp heat of Jacksonville, Florida, sank down on me like a shroud. My hair frizzed and my makeup started melting off my face. It was even worse indoors. My grandmother's squat house sat on the outskirts of the city. It was filled with an ugly brown-yellow light, for the curtains were always pulled together even at high noon. Little china shepherds and painted plates crowded the shelves. I could always smell something molding, though I never figured out what it was. And my grandmother not being the kind to bake cookies for me either. She hated Mom for stealing her only son away to Tulsa, and she hated me too. The first thing Grandmother Lombard told me was that I'd done sin and for her to let me live in her house without paying rent was approving of adultery. I kissed finishing high school goodbye – even if I hadn't gotten myself into this situation I hadn't had my heart set on graduating anyways –, and the next day I got a job waitressing at the Peach Pit diner.

That job was no treat but I stuck at it the entire time I was pregnant in Jacksonville, which was five months and two weeks exactly. My boss was Mr. Poulin who was oily and bucktoothed and acted like the Peach Pit was the restaurant at the Ritz, which I promise you it was not. Everybody who worked there thought I was a dumb Okie who didn't know any better than to get knocked up, and I thought they and their city were high-class as a bone yard. When I rode the bus home from work, the fumes made me nauseous. Sometimes I would be too tired to sleep at night, and I'd lie awake in the dark feeling the baby press down on my spine and trying to breathe in the warm stale air. I felt like I was suffocating. Sometime during those unmerciful nights, I learned to stop feeling sorry for myself.

When my baby girl was born, I wanted to call her something interesting and exotic – after meeting Sodapop I'd always wanted to be just as creative as his father – but Mrs. Lombard put her foot down and told me it had to be a name from the Bible. "After all, Cassandra is a heathern name and look what happened here," she said, squinting her eyes at me as if I'd taken up speaking in tongues. So the birth certificate says my baby's name is Sarah Lombard, but she is Redbud to me because when she was born she was as pink as the buds on the Oklahoma state tree that I did a report on in fourth grade.

After working seven months at the Peach Pit I bought my first-ever car, a turquoise-blue 1960 Ford Falcon station wagon and general P.O.S. though I was not about to complain for a second. Wheels were my freedom. I looked good driving that car around if I do say so myself, with the wind whipping my hair around. I had given up on makeup and fashion a long time ago, but I felt like a million bucks in that old car. Sometimes as I was leaving the Peach Pit I would feel my boss's eyes on me through the window-glass of the diner, but that was Mr. Poulin for you. There was nowhere and no one I wanted to go see in Jacksonville, and anyway I had about five hands full taking care of a new baby, but I had a ticket out and that was enough to get me through.

So anyway the morning of June 29 in the year 1967, almost one whole year after I'd last seen Tulsa, I was driving to work when the disc jockey announced that Ms. Jayne Mansfield, glamorous actress and mother, was decapified or whatever you call it when her car ran straight into a tractor-trailer on U.S. Route 90. I felt like _I'd_ died right along with her. That whole day I had to ask customers to repeat their orders and I kept bringing people the wrong kind of eggs. Mr. Poulin kept yammering at me to get it right, but I was too dazed to pay attention to him. Finally, I tripped over a mop handle someone had forgotten to put away and dropped a tray of glasses in front of all of our customers. Water and broken glass shards flew through the air. Some dumb teenagers started clapping, and that was the final straw for Mr. Poulin. He turned red as a pimple about to pop. "You dumb slut!" he shouted. "Can't you do anything right?"

My blood boiling was a return to waking life. "I sure can," I shot right back, "I can get the H-E-double-toothpicks out of this job!" I pulled off my apron and threw it on the ground, turned on my heel and stormed out of the Peach Pit forever. I'd had enough of Florida. It was time to get out and go home. And if home didn't want me, well, there were other places in America other than Tulsa and Jacksonville. If a big movie star could get wiped off the face of the earth for no reason, so could I, and I wasn't about to let my life be wasted in that two-bit town.

When I got back to the house, still fuming and my jaw clamped tight as a steel trap, I snapped the keys out of the engine, jumped out of the car, tiptoed past Mrs. Lombard asleep in her chair in the living room, and started packing.

Redbud was lying in her crib, sucking on her thumb like it was made of sugar. She lifted her head up to look at me.

As far as I'm concerned, Redbud is the only good to ever come out of Florida. Her first three months have been the most terrifying of my life for me, and the most – sublime, if that's what I think it means. Now that she was old enough to start sleeping through the night, I got along with her fine. I didn't used to think she took after me at all, since her wisps of hair are dark and mine are blond, and her eyes are almost black and Soda's kid brother once called mine china-blue. But our faces have the same heart shape, and I think we have the same quiet laugh.

I scooped her up with one arm and continued shoving clothes into my old brown leather suitcase. "We are going on an adventure," I told her.

She took her thumb out of her mouth and gurgled at me.

"Yes," I replied. I saw no sense in baby-talking her. "We're going to drive the Blue Pumpkin to Tulsa, Oklahoma. That's where Mama was born."

Mrs. Lombard watched Redbud while I was at work, and I guess she'd really hooked the kid on fairy tales and Bible stories. Cinderella was Redbud's favorite story (though for some reason Mrs. Lombard's version had Daniel and the lions' den in it too), for Mrs. Lombard claimed that she smiled more and drooled less when she heard about Cinderella, and my car had been nicknamed the Blue Pumpkin after the coach Cinderella takes to the ball. I had a few ideas about stories with Prince Charmings in them, but I kept them to myself. Mrs. Lombard's stories were just drops in the ocean of what I was soon leaving behind.

I sat back on my heels and snapped the buckles on the suitcase close. I stood up and grabbed it by the handle, carrying everything I held dear in my two hands. Mrs. Lombard was still napping, and I didn't bother to wake her as I walked out the door. It would be better this way: no goodbyes, no apologies I didn't mean or maybe did.

I had just closed my savings account in town and was tucking my envelope of 79.93 into the glove box of the Blue Pumpkin when it dawned on me that I had no idea how to get to Tulsa, and I was not exactly in the position to call up my parents to ask for directions.

"Tulsa is west of here, and to the north," I said to Redbud who was up front with me, and was too busy sticking her fingers in the rip in the leather seat to listen to me ramble. "So I'll just drive that way, and sooner or later I'll either get to Oklahoma or the Rocky Mountains or Canada. Whatever comes first." I was wondering to myself whether an atlas would be worth all the money when the sunlight off a road sign glinted into my face. I blinked, and there was an arrow pointing straight to U.S. Route 90. It was a revelation, and I took it as fate. Maybe Jayne Mansfield was my new guardian angel. I put my foot on the accelerator and the front suspension bounced joyfully as I merged onto the highway, headed west.

Redbud sang in some language too garbled and joyful for me to understand, and for the first time in a long while I felt like singing too.


	2. The Fortune Teller

Author's note: Smucker's Goober (the jar containing both peanut butter and jelly) was introduced in 1968. Poor Sandy is really missing out. The magazine cover is the June 27, 1967 edition of _Look_.

**Chapter Two**

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me," I bellowed along to the voice on the radio. "R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Take care, TCB. Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me …"

It was about a million degrees in the shade, and the undersides of my thighs stuck damply to the leather seat of the Blue Pumpkin. Sweat trickled down from my scalp and off the ridge of my forehead, and I tried to catch the salty drops with my tongue. We zoomed past fields and bristling pine tree forests baking in the wet still heat, but my eyes were fixed on getting to where the sky met the earth. Every shade of brown was the brownest I'd ever seen, and every blue was like turquoise. The whole world was over-salted.

Tallahassee had come and gone an hour ago. My guardian angel had been right on the money about US 90: while the grand tour of the Panhandle had nothing but cows and orange groves to show off, the Blue Pumpkin carried us away fast from the Peach Pit and old Mrs. Lombard but good. Redbud waved her arms and kicked her legs to the Billboard hot singles. I drove as fast as the third and highest gear would let me go, side window cranked down and my left arm thrust out. Occasionally I used my knee to steer when my right hand was busy feeding Redbud her bottle. I tried not to worry that the milk was warm – the calves drinking their mothers' milk outside didn't seem to be getting sick.

I could not quiet the thought at the back of my mind that I was doing something plumb crazy. Who brings a three-month-old baby on the road when it's hot as perdition? And I not being the sort of mother who'd know what to do if something went really wrong. I didn't have a map and even if I did I'd have better luck finding the way in a grease-speckled Peach Pit menu. I had already spent five bucks on gas – and if that doesn't sound like much to you, I made one dollar an hour waitressing, and sinners don't get big tips. It was not as if I was used to living in the lap of luxury, having been raised you might say in the _harsh circumstances_ of the East Side, but the last thing I wanted was to be stuck on some back road with no gas and no cash.

Most of all, I couldn't help thinking about what would happen when I showed up in Tulsa. It wasn't a pretty picture in the least. I was not foolish enough to think my folks and my girlfriends and Sodapop and Will Rogers High School would be waiting to welcome me back with open arms at the end of the road. I tried to concern myself more that my left arm was on its way to a bad sunburn. I was _free_, and that was enough to keep me from turning back.

The sun was starting to set when I smelled something I knew wasn't coming from the cow pies outside. "Those mama cows ain't had to change a diaper for their calves in all their lives," I informed Redbud, who was starting to fuss. I stuck my nose out the side window like a dog, trading the smell for blasts of hot wind. We needed a pit stop. The general plan I had worked out was to drive for as long as was humanly possible, but I was already tired and hungry from working almost a full day before deciding to run away. Big circus wagon that it was, the Blue Pumpkin was almost out of gas anyhow. It ate up gas like a regular at the Peach Pit scarfed key lime pie.

I stopped at the first town we came to – though _town_ is a pretty charitable word for Sneads, Florida. It was only seven-thirty Central Time, and the only place still open was the 7-Eleven. Jayne Mansfield be praised it had a gas pump. Teenagers were hanging around in the parking lot, just like all kids do whether they're in Sneads or San Antonio – I never having been to San Antonio but that is beside the point. "Guess it beats playing checkers for kicks," I murmured to Redbud as I carried her inside at arms' length. I tried to ignore the carloadfuls of eyeballs glued to us.

"Customers only," droned the cashier as I headed toward the back of the store.

"Oh, can you fill her up please? My car, I mean – not this one," I said, bouncing Redbud lightly.

The sight and smell of that washroom would have made most people faint but I changed Redbud and washed the dirty diaper in the chipped sink without making a face. I have always been careful to breathe through my mouth in public washrooms.

I and Redbud, who was now chirping sleepily on my hip, wandered through the empty convenience store. After the road, the rows of food seemed too neat and orderly – like a hospital. I picked up a loaf of Wonder Bread and a jar of peanut butter, and picked up and put down again a jar of strawberry jelly. "They oughtta put peanut butter and jelly in the same jar," I told Redbud. "It's too much money this way."

"That'll be four dollars for the gas," the cashier called out as he settled back in his station behind the counter.

My forehead knit. I was trying to live the dirt-cheapest I could, but at this rate I'd still go broke any day. I gave the clerk a once-over with a waitress's eye as I walked up to the counter and set the items down. He was maybe forty-five or a little older, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, starting to grow a belly, no ring. I didn't see any pin on his shirt that said he was the manager. I decided to try my trick. It was stupid, but usually got me what I wanted. That's what got Soda to notice me in the first place – the principle was the same.

When I get hungry, I am capable of doing horrible things.

"It's a nice night," I said casually as I laid four dollar bills on the counter. "Hot, though. Where I'm from it gets real hot, but not quite so humid as this."

"Oh, it'll get twice as muggy come next month," said the clerk. "But I've lived in the Panhandle since I was a boy, I'm used to it. A body can get used to 'most anything after a time."

"Mmm." I thought about the stares in the parking lot before getting back to the trick. "Listen," I said, "you seem like a real nice man so I'm going to shoot straight with you. That there's the money for the gas, but I'm going to be on the road a long time with this kid here and I ain't sure I can pay for this food in hard cash. But I can mop your floors, wash the windows, or … I can tell you your fortune."

He blinked. "What's that now?"

"I can read palms," I declared, throwing secretive glances around the room like it was full of Red Chinese spies. "I've been able to do it since I was a kid. Most people who say they can do it are frauds, but not me. That's why I gotta drive so far: we're going to work at the state fair in Texas for the Fourth of July. Usually I charge ten bucks a reading but I'll give you a special: one loaf of bread and a jar of Skippy. And a cup of coffee." I worked my mouth into a smile that used to turn any boy's head.

"Well …" He hesitated, and I actually thought about batting my eyelashes. I was that hungry, I swear to God. "Let's hear it."

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. "Okay. Give me your left hand, palm face-up," I told him as I plopped Redbud down on the counter. I took his puffy hand in both of mine and studied it for a moment.

"Okay … well this line here," I said, pointing to the crease in the middle of the palm, "means, um, adventure. See how it starts off straight, and then curves up? That means something exciting is coming your way."

"What kind of exciting?" he asked suspiciously.

"I can't say exactly, but it's got to do with" – my eye caught a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor on the cover of one of the magazines on display – "a woman with dark hair. And this line here at the base of your thumb means money. The deeper the line is, the richer you'll be."

"Could have sommat to do with Carole Hawkins, over on Davis Street," he said with more than a little bit of doubt in his voice.

"She a brunette?" I asked.

"Mm-hmm, and her family has the biggest house in town," he said softly. A faint smile crossed his face, and I figured that much covered the peanut butter.

"You have short fingers, so you'll be in good health your whole life," I kept going. I was so hungry I could feel my stomach contracting like a fist, but I didn't want to lead this poor man on a wild goose chase for some rich chick.

"Carole's been fixing to get married for some time now," the clerk continued, more to himself than me. It was plain he wasn't listening to me anymore. "Ain't found the right man yet."

"Well, you never really know what's going to happen," I said quickly. "Now let's see … this line that curves down the middle of your hand is a real good sign that–"

"Maybe next time she comes in for gas I'll ask to see her at her house sometime," he mused.

I had had enough. My eyes flew open and I sagged against the counter, dropping his hand. "I'm sorry – my inner eye gets tired out …"

"N-no … don't you worry yourself," he said. He was clearly still thinking about Carole Hawkins.

"I think I need to eat something – telling fortunes really takes it out of me. And some coffee would help too," I said.

"Oh, of course …" he said as he rang up the items for me for a total cost of $0.00. "Will you need–"

"–a bag? No thanks," I said as I juggled Redbud, the bread, the peanut butter, and a paper cup of coffee. I couldn't wait to get out of that store. "I'll be on my way. Good luck with that lady friend."

I downed the black coffee in two gulps and had finished my supper of bread dipped in peanut butter when I realized that my first real conversation with someone other than Mrs. Lombard or Mr. Poulin in I don't know how long was a total cock-and-bull story. When I had done my trick on Soda, the fortune ended with us kissing, and Soda had given me that irresistible grin for the first time. I don't know why I can lie so easily to strangers. Now that my stomach was full, I felt awful about the lonely cashier. Hope is a poor substitute for cold hard cash. It sounds weird, but strangers are also the only ones I'll give the absolute truth.

By the time I had finished my supper, Redbud had already fallen asleep. I cut out of Sneads. I never forgave myself for lying, but a body can get used to 'most anything after a time.


	3. Morning in Dixie

Author's notes: A timeline of the Civil Rights movement can be found at voicesofcivilrights DOT org/timeline/aarpTimeline.html  
This chapter uses language that is, if not politically incorrect, extremely outdated. To have Sandy speak with a twenty-first century vocabulary would be just as anachronous as giving her a cell phone. Thank you to Hahukum Konn, mars on fire, and byebyebirdie58 for your advice on the matter.

**Chapter Three**

We crossed the Alabama state line at midnight. Though there was a lemon-bright wedge of moon out, the road was so dark I could have driven to Timbuktu and never would have been able to tell the difference. Other than Redbud and me, there wasn't a soul on the road. At first I had enjoyed having the highway all to myself, but I'd long since gotten bored. If it hadn't been for the radio to keep me alert I probably would have fallen into a trance, gone straight off the road and not even noticed.

The coffee wore off an hour into Alabama. I was so tired I could barely keep my head up and everything was hilarious. I'd never heard this one song before, "Purple Haze," but I nearly woke Redbud up when I tried to imitate the singer: "Purple haaaaaaaaaze." When I saw the welcome sign for Saint Elmo, Alabama, I giggled so hard I decided I'd had enough for one day. (Saint _Elmo_! What kind of saint has a name like that?)

I pulled off the main road to the quiet side streets, looking for a place to sleep. A little field with trees everywhere – bingo. Though I knew I wouldn't be able to see a thing, I switched off the headlights as to not attract attention. I slowly drove the car off the road and under the protection of the trees, where I killed the engine. I climbed into the backseat of the Blue Pumpkin and stretched out, and briefly thought about what Elmer Fudd would look like in a halo and white robes before I fell sound asleep.

A tapping noise woke me up.

"Mmph! Cut it _out_, George," I griped. For one sleepy second, I guess I'd thought I was back home and all was like it used to be. Then Redbud started to bawl, whether from fright or plain hunger I didn't know; but that was enough to tug me back to the morning reality. As I blinked awake, I quickly discovered what was making the tapping: a broom was slapping the front windshield.

"Now what in the–" I muttered. I pushed myself up, following the shaft of the broom to see what was making it hit my car. Then I froze.

A Negro was holding the broom handle. Tucked under his other arm was a shotgun.

I forced myself to raise my hands slow as I could, to show I wasn't carrying a heater or dangerous to him at all. I rolled down the window. "Please don't shoot," I said.

"Ain't nobody finna shoot no one so long's you get off my prope'ty," he replied in a voice as deep as the purr of a souped-up engine.

It suddenly dawned on me that what I had thought was a field was in fact a yard, and behind the trees was a house, painted white but gone gray with age. It was even smaller and shabbier than my parents' house, but it was plain that someone lived here. With a combination of embarrassment and horror, I realized I'd slept on the man's front lawn.

I explained this and apologized to him about a million times. I practically near had to shout over Redbud's cries, and I longed to reach into the front and hold her, but a shotgun has a way of keeping you in your place. From what I could tell, the man wasn't buying an ounce of my story. I wished hard that Redbud would be quiet, and that Alabama jails wouldn't be too horrible a place for me to live.

"What's makin' all that noise?" A woman, his wife I guessed, had bustled out of the house and was peering at the Blue Pumpkin from the sagging front porch.

"My kid. She's three months old, and it ain't her fault she's in this mess," I answered. "Look, I'm real sorry I parked here on accident, and I've said so. Can you please let us leave in peace?"

"You got a _baby_ in there? Well for goodness' sake, put that gun _down_, Frank. Missy, you bring that chile inside for somethin' t'eat. I suppose you'll be having breakfast too." The woman was giving us orders, not invitations. I guess Frank knew she meant business. I gathered Redbud into my arms, doing my best to comfort her and generally shut her up fast as I could. As we crossed the lawn into the house, Frank gave us the hairiest eyeballs I ever did see. Not that I blamed him.

The front door led straight into the kitchen. It was the same chilly grayish color as the outside of the house, but the red-checked curtains and matching tablecloth gave the room some cheer. After having worked in a diner while pregnant, I thought I would never smell bacon and eggs again without wanting to hurl; but last night's peanut butter sandwich supper put together with the shotgun alarm clock made my mouth water.

"Ah! I knew we still had a baby bottle around here somewhere. I like to save everything. You'll excuse Frank, I hope. You might think he goes overboard with that shotgun of his, but you can't be too careful 'round here. My name is Barbara," said the woman as she dug through the icebox for milk. She had a fast way of talking that reminded me of dry beans dropping on a plate. The woman fed Redbud the bottle like it was her own flesh and blood what was hungry.

"I'm Sandy and that's R–uh, Sarah. I don't want to put you out of your way, Mrs. …"

"Oh no, Miz Barbara's just fine. It's no trouble." I felt funny calling a grown-up by her first name, but when she plunked a plate heaped with fried eggs and bacon down in front of me I was ready to go along with anything.

Frank traipsed into the kitchen, thankfully without broom or shotgun, and sat down across the table from me. When Miz Barbara handed him a plate, he took it and began eating without so much as a word to either of us. We were both the sort of person to stare at our food while we ate.

"So where did you come from to end up on our front lawn, Sandy?" Miz Barbara asked.

"We were visiting my grandmother, and now we're headed home to Tulsa." I was careful not to give too much away – I doubted anyone had reported me as a runaway, but better safe than sorry.

"Well, for goodness' sake! Imagine letting a young thing like you drive all that way by yourself."

"It ain't so bad," I said honestly. "I'm used to looking out for myself."

"Hm!" Frank expelled the air from his nose. It sounded like a bull snorting.

After that, I kept quiet till I had cleaned my plate. I said, "It was awful nice of y'all to invite us in."

"It's our pleasure. This house hasn't been crowded enough in years," Miz Barbara replied warmly and for a minute I was more at home than anywhere ever before.

Frank muttered something into his breakfast.

"What was that?" Miz Barbara snapped.

"I said," Frank rumbled, "if I had done wanted whiteys steady takin' me for all I's worth I coulda just stayed in the Army."

I felt my cheeks burn.

Miz Barbara swelled like a mama bullfrog. "A girl scrappin' to beat heck is a far cry from white supremacy, and you know it," she said.

"The Constitution of this ever-lovin' country guaran_tees_ us life, liberty, and prope'ty," said Frank, "and if you as't anyone have they come done right by the colored man, anybody'd say no. I done served this country and I pay taxes, and I say I got the right to protect what's mine."

"That's just how the world works," Miz Barbara said stoutly. "Not every white folk's out there burning crosses."

"Maybe you been forgot Bloody Sunday. I made it tuh all three marches and I'll be damned if ain't nothin' changed. I'm goan to work."

He slammed the door behind him as he left, and Redbud started wailing all over again. I was almost grateful for the racket, though – it covered up the heavy silence left in the wake of the quarrel.

Once I got her settled down, I helped Miz Barbara with the dishes. They didn't even have running water, so I had to go out back and fetch water in a bucket to clean with. It was the least I could do. I hated being guilty for things I'd done wrong, but the added guilt of Frank's anger and Miz Barbara's charity was almost too much to bear.

"I'm not from around here," she said suddenly. "Born and raised in Chicago – Korea brought Frank and me together. I was a nurse at Camp Casey, and he was stationed there. Got himself a Silver Star for valiance."

I started to say something like Congratulations; but I'd rather talk about almost anything else other than war. Miz Barbara washed the dishes, and I dried them with an old rag.

"After y'all got back, why didn't you go somewhere more …" I tried to think of a nice way to say it but couldn't– "… else?"

Good thing Miz Barbara actually smiled at that. "We didn't have too much money between us, and Frank's parents were here. Never thought I'd end up here, after all the stories my mama an' daddy told me about Dixie. Emmett Till wasn't hardly six feet in the ground when I showed up in the South, and don't think I forgot that."

I couldn't match the name to anything in my memory, but it sounded bad. "I wouldn't have stayed. I woulda bolted a long time ago."

Miz Barbara looked at me with a gaze as sharp as an eagle, I never having seen a real eagle but that is beside the point. "Now listen to me, child," she said low and urgent, "don't you _never_ let love get you caught somewhere you don't want to be. I don't see no ring on your finger, but your baby girl could have had you stuck good. You want to see the world before you think of settlin' down, it's plain as day – so hold onto that but tight."

"Yes, ma'am," I said. I wiped the frying pan dry. "And I can't thank you enough for everything."

I was emptying out the wash-water in the backyard when it occurred to me that what Frank had said was pretty much what any greaser would say about the Socs, and probably what the president himself would say about the Red Menace.

I had to get on my way, but when Miz Barbara wrapped me up in a goodbye hug I wanted to stay so bad. I knew Frank wouldn't be a fan of that, and probably Miz Barbara herself if she'd really got to know me. As I drove off their lawn and out of Saint Elmo, I promised myself I would pay them back if I ever had the chance. Once I got my own life and liberty in order.


	4. Genesis

**Chapter Four**

Geographically speaking, it would have taken me longer to spell out M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I than drive across it. But there I was, stuck somewhere outside Pascagoula. Apparently there'd been an accident somewhere down the highway and the traffic slowed to a snail's pace. I have never done well when forced to be around a lot of people; waitressing had not been the smartest of what you might call a career choice. I was antsy and not even the radio could distract me. Though my eyes were fixed on the road, I let my thoughts drift over the Pascagoula Bay to the memories I'd relived a million times since I was sent to Florida. Not just the ones about Soda. After all, he wasn't the only person I'd cared about and left behind.

And that whole story began long before he made an entrance, anyway.

x x x x x x x

In the beginning, there was Evie.

We met in junior high. One day I went to the bathroom and a skinny brunette pounced out of a stall and ordered me to watch for any teachers while she sneaked a smoke. I decided she was pretty, though in a different way from everyone else. Her nose was long and pointy, and she looked like she tried to avoid the sun as much as I and all the other girls soaked it up. Between drags, she introduced herself: "I'm Evie Hammond and I'm glad I got you as my look-out. Last person in here was Kathleen Rogers, and she was the biggest drip of all time. Her pigtails make me wanna kill myself."

She talked in a bored way that made me excited to prove myself to her. I thought Evie was the tuffest thing since frosted eye shadow.

From then on, the two of us were inseparable. Evie showed me how to sneak into the movie theater. I helped her dye her hair blond for the first time and talked her out of bleaching her eyebrows to match. We tried dieting for the first time together, and when we gave up after twenty-five hours and went to the Tastee-Freez she ate the cherry on my sundae and I took at least half of her fries. Then we discovered boys.

Summer before last, I got a phone call.

"I met a guy at the Dingo," Evie told me over the phone, "and he's the most gorgeous boy in the whole world."

"Uh-huh," I said. "If I remember correctly, the last guy you liked was also the most _gorgeous_ person, and the boy before him was too."

"Well, this is completely different. _This_ boy has a car. He invited me to the rodeo in Sand Springs this weekend, but you gotta come along with me. I don't wanna be stuck by my lonesome in the outskirts of town with some boy I don't know. What if he turns out ta be a total bore?"

"If he's as good-lookin' as you say he is, just kiss him and then you don't have to talk to him no more," I laughed. But of course I agreed to go. We stuck together, Evie and me.

I slept over at Evie's house the night before the rodeo, and we ignored her old man who was drunk and stayed up late figuring out just how much makeup we could wear to a rodeo without looking trashy.

The next morning, Evie's date rolled up in a battered piece of junk. We sauntered up to the car like it was a cherry Cadillac.

Evie tapped on the passenger side window. The boy had to lean over to roll it down, so I got a chance to see his face. He did not, in my opinion, live up to his reputation as the most gorgeous boy I'd ever laid eyes on; but then, Evie always did have weird taste.

"Hi, Steve," she said through the open window. "This is my friend Sandy. We're so glad you invited me to the rodeo. We _love_ rodeo."

She could lie through her teeth like a pro. Truth was, put together we could barely tell the difference between a bull and a fried egg.

"Get in already. I don't know anything about rodeo except horses can't go as fast as cars and rodeo men smell like cow crap." So that was Steve Randle. He was big into cars and his clunker was souped up to high heaven. I sat in the back and watched the concrete give way to countryside while Evie rode shotgun and cooed at Steve. I remember wondering at some point whether there was more oil in the car or in Steve's hair.

Since none of us knew a thing about rodeo, we spent most of the day wandering through the dusty fairgrounds. It was hot out and I got a sunburn on the back of my neck. Evie and Steve made a big game out of pointing out the biggest hicks. They got along great and I knew I was a fifth wheel. On top of being odd man out, I ate too much fried food. After a while, though, even Evie stopped pretending she loved rodeo. We were all bored, sweaty, and sober.

We were making our way toward the concession stand to see if anyone would buy us beer when someone announced over the PA system that the saddle bronc competition would begin in five minutes. Steve wheeled in his tracks and headed to the arena. Evie and I followed him. He started pushing his way through the crowded bleachers, and somehow we all managed to squeeze into the very front row.

"We just hafta stay for this, then we can cut out," Steve said. "My buddy's riding in the saddle bronc."

"Ooh, what's that?" Evie asked. I rolled my eyes. Evie always acts syrupy around boys – that is, at least till she's got them hooked.

"The guy on top's gotta stay put for eight seconds," he said.

I didn't see what was so very impressive about _that_. I'd never been on a horse but I was pretty sure that even I could be a saddle bronc champion.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, howdy and welcome to the saddle bronc e-vent," the announcer drawled in a corn-poney voice. "Remember, these boys are competing for a cash prize of ten buckaroos as well as the glory of the River City Rodeo title! Starting us off from Ponca City is Eddie Byerly!"

Evie and I gasped when we realized what Steve had really meant.

The way saddle bronc really works, the rider gets on the horse in a small pen called the bucking chute. When the gate to the chute opens, the horse bursts into the arena. The rider holds on for dear life to the bucking horse for eight seconds by using his legs and a rein that he can only hold with one hand. And when you've got a thousand pounds of animal trying to throw you, eternity itself seems shorter than eight seconds. Eddie Byerly didn't last three. I hoped the road back to Ponca City didn't have too many potholes, for he was sure to be sore.

"Next up, all the way from Yellville, Arkansas … Wayne Carson!"

Another horse and rider came bouncing out of the chute. I could barely watch for fear of seeing Wayne Carson crack his skull. Instead I looked at the timer counting down and clapped when he rode the eight seconds through. We were sitting so close, I could see the sweat fly off him.

"Coming up is Tulsa's own Sodapop Curtis!" the announcer said. Steve cheered and I figured out that Soda must be his buddy. And out of the chute they came.

"Oh–" I breathed.

Eight seconds. Sodapop Curtis rocked his legs back and forth in perfect time with the horse's movement. Seven seconds. His free arm waved high above his head. Six seconds. He was whooping from under his straw cowboy hat. Five. He was the beautiful king of the rodeo on a bucking throne. Four. He leaned back, and I pictured the toned muscles of his chest and back holding him up. Three.

Suddenly, the horse switched directions in mid-buck. Thrown off-guard, Sodapop pitched forward and the rein went slack. He flew over the horse's neck and landed on his knees with a _whumph_. He slumped over like a sack of potatoes.

Two seconds – Steve swore loudly and hoisted himself over the railing of the bleachers. He ran to the still figure. One. I clung to Evie. It was my fault, somehow, it had to be – I had been thinking those thoughts about him, and look what had happened –! Zero.

A paramedic had pushed Steve out of the way to examine Sodapop. He felt for a pulse, then started asking Sodapop all sorts of questions. "How many fingers am I holding up, son? Does it feel tender here … no … how about here? Can you wiggle your big toe? Good … Think you can walk?"

So he wasn't dead. They slung Sodapop's arm around Steve's shoulders and half-dragged him out of the arena. Later we found out they were already using the stretcher for someone who got trampled by a bull.

I felt Evie pry herself from my clutch. "Let's go find them," she said, and we sprinted to the first aid tent.

Sodapop was slumped down onto a folding chair. The paramedic stooped over him, asking still more questions. Steve stood off to the side, mouth pursed hard into a thin line and arms crossed.

"We're calling an ambulance right now. Nothing's broken, but you need to get some X-rays done to make sure you haven't busted your spleen," the medic was telling Sodapop as we hesitantly took places next to Steve. Sodapop didn't look as though he'd at all registered what the medic had said.

Up close he was even more handsome. Even when he was covered in icepacks and groaning loudly enough to wake the dead, he looked like a movie star. I longed to pick the dirt and sawdust out of his greased-back hair. (Now, I realized how disgusting the inside of his cowboy hat must have been.)

"I can drive him to the hospital," Steve said quickly. "I mean, it ain't like he's gonna die if he doesn't go in an ambulance, right?"

Evie pivoted to look at him, eyebrows raised. "And I suppose Sandy 'n me can just walk home?"

"Look, Soda's gotta get to the hospital and ambulances ain't cheap. And I gotta call his folks and maybe even do some paperwork. I don't have time to deal with a coupla sponges," Steve snarled.

"_S__ponges_–"

"It's okay," I broke in. "I can call my brother. He'll give us a ride home."

Everyone turned to look at me, as though they hadn't realized I was standing there.

"If you can get him there quick, it's all right to drive him," the medic said. He looked as though he would rather do things his way, but having to argue with both Steve and Evie would be biting off more than he could chew. Besides, if Sodapop died it would be just another grease.

"I'll go bring the car around. Get Soda out front," Steve said. He ran off.

I elbowed Evie.

"Umm … wait! I'm not done talking to you!" she yelled and went after him.

The medic had taken Sodapop's arm the way Steve had done in the arena; and, after giving me a pointed look, I awkwardly did the same. Sodapop limped badly and we ended up pretty near having to carry him out to the parking lot. The three of us stood there and waited. I tried not to think too much about the fact that the best-looking boy in Tulsa had his arm around me. Then I realized that there was no point in being shy around someone who probably had a concussion.

He spoke for the first time. "Was that the broad Steve picked up at the Dingo?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm her friend Sandy. Evie asked me to tag along, in case they had nothing to say to each other."

"Guess they didn't run into that problem."

"Nope." I giggled.

Sodapop started to laugh, but suddenly drew a breath through his teeth.

"You all right, Sodapop? Can I get you some aspirin?" I asked.

"No aspirin until you get checked out at the hospital," the medic said sternly. "Just in case."

"I'm fine. Call me Soda," he said in what he clearly thought was a sunny tone. "I'm sure glad I got first place in the contest. I could sure use those ten dollars 'bout now."

He looked as though he was about to start crying.

I don't know how I came up with it, but for some reason I told him I could read his palm if he liked. I think I heard the medic snort, but it's not like he had any better ideas for cheering a person up.

"This line means, um, you'll be just fine, and this one here means that you're the best saddle bronc rider in Oklahoma …"

And so on. And by the time Steve and Evie came around with the car, Soda had a grin on his face. It turned out he had a concussion, a broken wrist, bruised ribs, and a torn ligament (the ALC or some such thing), and Soda had to quit the rodeo; but on the bright side, he got a girl's phone number written down on his cast.

x x x x x x x

All of a sudden, my eye caught the "Thank you for visiting" state sign as we passed it. Apparently the traffic hadn't been moving as slow as I'd thought. Louisiana now lay before us. I would be in New Orleans in less than an hour.


	5. Queen of Voodoo

Author's notes: For more information on Marie Laveau, I highly recommend Martha Ward's _Voodoo Queen: __The__ Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau_. The song in the middle of the chapter is a traditional song called the Bamboula Dance.

**C****hapter Five**

The magnolia trees were in full bloom all over the South, ivory crowns bursting against dark green leaves. The smell curled sweetly in my nose in New Orleans' summer heat.

We were there because I wanted us to be there. I had intended to reach Tulsa by mid-afternoon, but then again I had not taken the fact that US 90 runs straight through New Orleans into account. When I saw the arrows pointing to the French Quarter, I followed them. In the past twenty-four hours, I had seen more of the country than in all the rest of my born days put together. (The bus to Jacksonville didn't count – I had spent the entire ride locked in the bathroom on account of morning sickness, so I hadn't really gotten the scenic tour.) If anyone deserves a vacation, I said to myself, it's me.

Last year, a couple of Socs drove down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras; they came back with a wrecked car and a bad case of the clap. Naturally Soda and Steve and their friend Two-Bit thought this was the most hilarious thing that ever happened, but they were also jealous as heck. They started planning for the next year's Mardi Gras. I must have heard the words "Big Easy" and "loaded broads" about a million times before Evie had put her foot down and threatened to break up with Steve if he went. The boys never did take that trip, but I couldn't blame them for wanting to get out and go crazy. If you want the truth, I had wanted to go too.

It was crowded, so I parked the Blue Pumpkin a few blocks away from the main drag. As I walked into the French Quarter with Redbud on my hip, my first thought was that we had tumbled into a birthday cake. All the buildings were painted peach and pink and sunset-orange, and fancy iron balconies – galleries they are called though I have no idea why – squiggled up and down the buildings like icing. A few streets away, what must have been church spires peeked up over the shops like the candles on a cake. It was barely noon and already the bars' neon signs were buzzing; men stumbled out, with what my daddy called race records drifting after them out the open doorways. I saw two hookers in get-ups that would make even a hood like that Tim Shepard blush. Cake, sex, jazz, and liquor – it sounded like an okay birthday party to me. And everywhere the smell of magnolias, sweeter than saccharin.

I wandered through the streets, thinking about how if Aretha Franklin and that Jimi Hendrix was race records and Miz Barbara was the nicest lady I'd met in a year then it was wrong that Negroes were treated like dirt. An old woman wearing a heavy black mourning veil stopped to look at limp chickens swinging in a shop window.

Near a cemetery with more weeping angels than you could shake a stick at, street vendors sold miniature tortured-looking figurines ("Santos for cheap! Saint Espedee, Ou'Lady of Prompt Succor!") and black feather fans. The bright sunlight lit up the black feathers, making me squint.

For a minute, I watched a man paint a skull with roses in its eyes on the side of a cotton candy-colored building. Death was everywhere, embracing New Orleans like twisting dark magnolia branches. No one else seemed bothered by it at all.

People of all colors swarmed around us; the smell of flowers mixed with musky sweat of unwashed beggars. I wondered what would happen if the crowd swept us away, and we were trapped in the neon magnolia jazz-death forever. No one would know what had happened. I suddenly felt as though I was wearing a high-collared velvet dress on a very hot day.

For the first time in a long while, I wanted someone to protect me.

I ducked into the next doorway, grateful for the cool and dark. Eyes closed, I forced myself to stop panicking. Breathe in. It smelled of incense, which reminded me of Mrs. Lombard's Catholic church. I'd never cared for it – incense or mass – but at the moment I was glad for something familiar. Being woken up that morning by a stranger carrying a shotgun must have been what had made me jumpy. Breathe out. After I had gotten a hold of myself, I took a look around at my surroundings.

At first I thought it was just another souvenir shop, for the front half was crammed with New Orleans coffee mugs and all that kind of stuff you could probably find even in Saint Elmo, Alabama; but then I noticed the voodoo dolls, African masks, and bags of something called _gris-gris_ for sale. A record played strange music that clapped and throbbed in a language I didn't know.

The back of my neck prickled. If my folks knew I was in here, they'd go ape. As if having a baby at seventeen wasn't enough.

More to keep myself calm than general interest, I examined the shelves of soaps and smelling salts. Surely they couldn't put voodoo in soap. Ain't no such thing as black magic. It's just a tourist trap.

"_'__Poudre pour__ Vie Facile_,_'_" I read aloud to Redbud from the label of a jar. You can imagine how my French accent was not about to win me a trip to Paris. "'Many of our customers like to brew our Easy Life Powder into a tea, to be drunk as a charm for good luck in business, gambling, love affairs, and other money matters. Prepared by the Priestess Marguerite herself in hopes of your good fortune and easy living. _Ainsi soit-il._'"

"May I help you?"

I jolted. I hadn't heard the sales girl come up behind me. If some teenager near collapsed in my store, I guess I would have asked the same thing.

"No, thank you," I replied. I wasn't sure what to make of her. She was real tall, and not white or Negro but something in between. She wore a violet scarf in her hair and beaded bracelets on her slender wrists. I wondered if she was a devil worshipper. I wondered if she thought it was all crock and bull.

"I see you're interested in the Easy Life Powders," she said in an airy, far-off voice that reminded me of this soufflé Mr. Poulin once tried to put on the menu at the Peach Pit. "Tell me, have you ever used Voodoo befo'?"

"I'm sort of between religions right now." I was raised Baptist and went to Sunday school and all that – that's how come Mrs. Lombard hated my mother so much, because I wasn't sprinkled Catholic – but I doubted I could ever show my face in that church again. I wasn't about to take up with a cult just because Mrs. Lombard got on my nerves, though.

The sales girl smiled. She was older than I first thought. "What is you' name?"

"Sandy."

"Like Cassandra?"

"Yeah." I was surprised. I'm the only Cassandra I know. I don't know why my folks couldn't have been happy with just Sandra.

"Take pleasure in your true name, for it gives you power. I guarantee you, Cassandra, that these products are highly effective," the lady said. "I make each one by hand. I am a direct descendent of Marie Laveau, and her skill and knowledge flow through all my veins."

"Who? I mean …" I decided that being rude to a voodoo priestess was not in my best interest. "I mean, I've never heard of Marie Laveau before, ma'am."

"Tuh! She _o__n_ly de most powerful woman in N'awlins that ever lived!" she exclaimed. I got the feeling she probably said this a hundred times a day. "Queen of Voodoo for a hundred years. She could read minds and had eternal youth. Had de power to make a cheatin' lover come crawlin' home. She was even known to see de future. Every Sunday morning she went to mass, and every afternoon she danced with a serpent in Congo Square with all de slaves of N'awlins."

She stopped talking to listen to that strange song.

_Oh __lélé__, oh lala, je suis toujours __prêt pour la Bamboula …_

"Tuff enough," I said finally. "I'd like to see the future. But why'd she go to mass if she was a voodoo queen?"

"Voodoo is not Satanism or witchcraft," Marguerite said. "Sometimes, people are evil but sometimes people are called evil by others. De devil belongs to Christianity and der he must stay. In Voodoo you do not have to choose one divine beauty over another."

"Sorry," I said. I meant it too. "If I had money to spend on an Easy Life Powder, I'd be living an easier life than the one I got now."

"Who de little one?" The priestess's eyes were suddenly fixed on my hip.

"Oh, that's Redbud. We're a set these days."

The Priestess Marguerite looked at me for a minute, just like Miz Barbara had. I was used to being sized up. I focused on a statue of a crying woman in blue (Mary, Our Lady of Prompt Succor, oh please help me) for I've never been good at looking folks in the eye.

"Listen to the gumbo ya-ya," she said, "and you'll hear many stories about Marie Laveau. She goes by many names – Widow Paris, even la femme du diable – and some say she ain't but a big old fraud. But coming from me, you know I speak truth. Marie Laveau, her babies were all born good in the eyes of le Grand Zombi. No matter what dem papers say. Men without eyes been running things too long. _Dey __all born__ good._"

"I believe you," I said. "I'm real sorry I can't buy your Easy Life Powder."

I practically ran out of that store. I really hadn't the faintest idea what she was trying to say, but I knew about _gumbo ya-ya_ all right. And I knew I was afraid of death, and now I knew that there were more kinds of folks out there than I could have ever dreamed of. And Tulsa seemed farther away than ever.

Once I'd stopped shaking – I would not cry –, I put Redbud in the Blue Pumpkin, climbed in and drove off. I never wanted to want someone ever again.


	6. West of Paradis

**Chapter Six**

When I was a good ways out of the city, I pulled the bread and peanut butter out and fixed myself a sandwich. Eating didn't make everything all right again, but at least I wasn't flying off the handle anymore. Out on the road, nothing could really get to me. I told myself this over and over until I believed me.

About an hour went by and then Redbud started to holler.

"If you were hungry, why didn't you just say so?" I demanded. The only reply I got was louder howling. I reached into the backseat for a can of Enfamil. By now I was an expert at steering with my knee. "Oh, what in the H-E-double-toothpicks–"

I was out of formula – the one thing I hadn't conned back in Sneads. We had just passed through Paradis, a town about the size of Redbud's pinky toe. Who knew when the next convenience store would be; but I was not about to backtrack and waste gas. I'd have to nurse, plain and simple. I wrinkled my nose as I stopped the Blue Pumpkin on the side of the empty road.

To be honest, nursing gave me the willies. Buying the bra with the flaps had probably been the crowning embarrassment of my time in Jacksonville, and I had been happy to spend half my paycheck on formula so I wouldn't have to wear the contraption. I hadn't thought to put it on yesterday – yesterday being the last time I'd changed clothes, after I'd thrown my waitress uniform in the trash – so I would have to up and lift my whole shirt. I picked Redbud up and shushed her in hopes that I wouldn't go deaf by the time I was twenty, and walked a ways away from the road. At least she hadn't started yammering somewhere too swampy. I pulled up my ratty tank top and tried my best not to squirm.

To distract myself, I thought about how much I enjoyed wearing my tank top and jean shorts again. Mrs. Lombard hadn't approved of girls wearing such things ("Maybe you're not a virtuous young lady but I will not have an automobile mechanic for a granddaughter!"), and then of course I couldn't have fit into them anyway.

I thought about how we had passed by where Jayne Mansfield had been killed. The road had been clean and clear and there was no sign at all that a movie star had crashed into a tractor-trailer just a day before. I wondered what her kids must be thinking. The radio announcer had said she was a mother of three. Had a glamorous woman like her planned to have all those babies? I wondered.

Now I'd planned to give my baby up from the get-go. It wouldn't fix everything, not even close, but at least I wouldn't have to change diapers. But then I'd met the little blue thing, _her_; and I knew I was in it for the long haul.

Redbud was done and I suddenly had to use the powder room. Badly. And as far as I could tell there was not one rest stop in the state of Louisiana.

Well, alackaday. I'd already given anyone watching an eyeful. There was no time to even pull my shirt down. After setting Redbud down in a shady spot a safe distance away, I unzipped my fly and let 'er rip. Squatting naked in broad daylight, I must have looked stupid as a donkey softball game; but there had been no way around it.

I looked down at my body in the hot sun. It was something I had generally avoided doing for the past year. I had lost some of the baby weight, but not all, and my belly had these awful stretch marks. The top half of me was sunburned, but my legs were pale as eggs – and stubbly too, what with me not being too attached to personal hygiene on the road. I was not on my way to becoming the next Jayne Mansfield.

Well. Maybe I would never turn any boy's head ever again, but as far as I could tell there was nothing particularly evil about me. I was just bone and muscle and peanut butter sandwiches. And then I understood what the Priestess Marguerite had meant when she said, _Dey__ all born good._

My baby was good, and _I_ was good. No one had ever said that before. Something in my body – me – began to swell with joy.

And next thing I knew, I had jumped plumb out of my clothes and was galloping through the marshy grasses.

"Whoo-ee!" I yelled to the world west of Paradis. "I am naked as a jaybird! I dress like an auto mechanic! … Piss fire damn son of a bitch and 'scuse me while I kiss the sky!"

I tripped over a root, sprawled on the ground, and never stopped whooping.

Redbud watched me and giggled. I pulled my clothes back on and scooped her up. I threw off shame for good.

I walked back to the Blue Pumpkin and was greeted by a troop of Boy Scouts gawking at me with their traps hanging open. Just why and how long they were there was beyond me; but plainly they had seen the whole show. I just laughed quietly as I floored it.


	7. I Corinthians

Author's note: This web site may shed some light on the conversation in the bathroom: en DOT wikipedia DOT org/wiki/Historyofabortion#1920sto1960s (it says something about Internet sources that a Wikipedia entry was the least biased article I could find on the matter).

**Chapter Seven**

You can only stare at a swamp for so long before it begins to get tiresome. And three and a half hours after my "incident" with the Boy Scouts, I officially had seen enough of it to last me a lifetime. Redbud napped, not that she made the best traveling company anyway. To make matters worse, the radio had died. I guess the guy who'd owned the Blue Pumpkin before me had run her way too hard, for even though she wasn't an old car she sputtered every now and then. Get what you pay for, I guess.

So without anything else to keep me interested, there was nothing to stop me from thinking about what I'd left behind.

x x x x x x x

I leaned with my elbows propped up on top of the chain-link fence outside the front of my house. The hem of my skirt fluttered in the May evening breeze.

"'_Wouldn't_ it be nice if we were older, _then_ we wouldn't have to wait so long,'" Soda warbled as he pulled up in his brother's old truck.

"Your tough-guy friends know you listen to the Beach Boys?" I teased him as I waited for him to pop open the door for me.

"No, and they're never gonna find out. Hey, I got you something." Soda held out a pink carnation.

I grinned like a Chessy cat. "Ain't you something. Let me put it in some water."

"Nah, no time for that. Come on, I want to show you off to the whole world," Soda said. I stuck the flower behind my hair, carefully checking my reflection in the truck's side mirror as Soda gunned the engine.

We had more or less the same conversation every date:

"Whattaya up for tonight?"

"There's a new Jayne Mansfield picture out, _The Fat Spy_," I said. "We could go see it, if you want."

"Aw, you know I'm no good at sitting still. Golly I'm starving. Let's go to Jay's."

Jay's Drive-In was packed as usual, since it was the only burger place on the East Side that had sit-down service and air conditioning too. Soda walked around the parking lot for a while talking to everybody in their cars, and I tagged along beside him though I had nothing to say to any of the hoods he was talking to. It was important that people got the right, hand-in-hand impression of us.

"Hey, Sodapop!" some grease ball yelled.

"What's happenin', Rick?" Soda said.

"Gary Stadler got into it with some kid from Brumly, and they're gonna race tomorrow night. You goin'?"

"Tomorrow's the Spring Fling, Soda," I said. It was the last dance of the year except for the prom, and I knew it would be easier to ride saddle bronc than get Soda into a tuxedo. The Spring Fling, which was only a semi-formal, had been our compromise.

"Oh, right … guess not," Sodapop said. I didn't miss the flash of disappointment in his eyes, and I squeezed his hand with mine.

Finally Soda remembered he was hungry and we managed to get our favorite table. It was right up against the window, and someone had carved "True luv 4-ever" into the Formica.

The waitress came over to our table. By then I'd gotten good at sensing when girls thought Soda was cute, and was she ever a blip on the radar.

"Burger, no onions, fries and a Diet Pepsi," I said, handing her my menu without so much as a glance at her. I used to be a real witch to waitresses. Naturally my position on this has changed ever since I myself went into what you might call the restaurant business.

"I'll have a chocolate milkshake and two chili dogs," Soda said.

"You want cheese on those?"

"Yeah. Wait – no. Can I get chocolate syrup on them instead?"

"You want _chocolate_ on your chili dogs?"

Soda shrugged yeah and flashed that movie-star smile. No waitress could have ever resisted. After the last of her sashaying behind had disappeared into the kitchen, I excused myself. I don't know why you have to go to the powder room to fix your hair in the middle of a date – you just do.

Denise Baker and Kathy Kiskadden were primping in front of the speckled mirror. Evie called those girls the Rats, for neither of them would go anywhere without a large bottle of hairspray and a comb. I thought they were fun even if they were a little trashy.

"Hi, Sandy," Kathy said. "You here with Sodapop?"

I nodded slowly, so they would notice the carnation in my hair. "He gave me this."

Denise snorted. "When boys get you flowers, you just know they expect somethin' back."

"Soda's not like that," I said. "We've got something special."

"Sure," Denise said, "that's what Sylvia says every time she goes all the way with a new guy."

"But Sylvia's a slut," Kathy said. "Sandy and Sodapop will probably end up gettin' married – shotgun-free."

I smiled and looked down modestly.

"Ooh, speaking of. Know what I heard?" Denise said casually as she popped the cap off a tube of mascara. "Guess who's going to Mississippi this weekend."

"Not Sylvia?"

"No. Better," Denise said, leaning forward secretively. "_Cherry Valance._"

"You're kidding!" I said. "How do you know that?"

"I forget who told me," Denise said, cocking a hip and holding her mascara wand like a cigarette. "But have you noticed she's gotten fatter? And then someone said they saw Bob Sheldon, that's Cherry's boyfriend, buying a map at the Enco station."

"Maybe they're going on a fishing trip," I said.

Kathy arched a thin eyebrow. "The only little weekend trip you take to Missi-everlovin'-ssippi is for the operation. I've been reading the papers for the past month and they say it's the only place where you know it's not going to be some man with a coat hanger."

"You've never read the paper in all your life. I wonder what she'll tell the doctor," Denise said. "Maybe she'll say her brother did it to her. Or that she got raped."

"She'll probably just stuff some money in his hand … or, she'll just do what got her in trouble in the first place!" Kathy cackled.

"Well, poor Soda's probably thought I've run off by now. I ought to make sure that waitress isn't hanging around him," I said. "See y'all at the Spring Fling!"

The food came and Soda polished off every bit of what he was given. While we waited for the bill he jumped up and pretended to take everybody's order. I laughed till my sides hurt. Anybody else and I would have crawled under the table with embarrassment; but everyone was in love with him and he knew it.

After we left Jay's, Soda wheeled us around until he stopped at the city park. We climbed into the bed of the truck. It was a warm night out.

Soda always was a gentleman. He waited till the third date to kiss me for the first time, and even when we'd park he'd keep his hands north of the equator. Soda was so impatient about everything else, and sometimes I wondered why he didn't try anything more. But I was not one of those girls who would say something. I did not intend for my name to be thrown around in any washroom.

"How come you get steamed whenever there's a drag race?" Soda asked me, twirling a piece of my hair in his fingers.

"It's the Spring Fling," I said. "I ain't going by myself."

"You know those drag races don't start till late. I could still go to the dance with you."

"What about the after-party?"

"Sandy, you don't even like those parties."

"Drag racing's _dangerous_," I said.

"So's crossing the street," he said. "What's really bugging you?"

"I just don't want you lovin' anything more'n me, not even some cherry car," I told him, and he seemed satisfied with that. It didn't do any good to tell him anything he didn't want to hear. Most of the time I thought Soda got everything about me, but sometimes I thought his skull must be thick as an anvil.

For a while we just looked at the stars, my head on his chest and his arm wrapped around me.

"Sandy. You love me?"

"You know I do."

"I've been thinking … well, you know I love you too. And now that I'm working fulltime – I mean, I ain't staying at the DX forever, I'm gonna get a better job … but I can support you."

For some reason not entirely clear to me at the time, I played dumb. I said, "Well, that's real sweet that you want to bring me flowers every time you take me out, but I got my folks around to take care of everything else."

"No, Sandy, what I'm sayin' is … I want to marry you."

I pulled away from him and sat up. "What?"

Soda was smiling earnestly at me. "Not right away. I still want to help Darry out with the bills, at least till Ponyboy finishes high school. But someday. I'll get you a ring and everything."

"My dad would flip," I said, not looking at him. What was wrong with me? I'd been doodling _Mrs. Sodapop Curtis_ on the covers of my notebooks all year.

"Ever since my parents …" Soda swallowed and stopped for a second. "Things ain't been the same since. But you got me through all that, and when your brother left I was there for you too. Look, when I'm with you, everything's okay. More than okay. And I just want to hold onto what matters to me. I love my brothers, but … I want a real family again."

"I'll think about it." When I said this, Soda's face lit up like the sun. He looked like some kind of Greek god, or what I imagined Greek gods to look like from the cover of one of my textbooks. Not that I had ever paid much attention to that sort of thing.

Soda drove me back to my house, pulling me in to kiss me whenever we were stopped at a red light. I put up with it and was thankful he didn't try to use his tongue. When the ride was finally over, I leapt out of the truck and practically ran into my house. Suddenly, the thought of the Spring Fling made me want to puke.

x x x x x x x

I'd expected Texas to be all cactus and cow skulls, but so far it was more of the same old swamp. But I started seeing signs for Houston, so at least I knew I wasn't driving in circles. From what I had been able to figure out from studying the map at the last rest stop, I would need to go north from the city to get to Tulsa. If I kept on US 90, who knew where I'd be going. I would still be free.

There was still plenty of time to back out, I told myself as I kept my eyes peeled for signs pointing north.


	8. Miles to Go

**Chapter Eight**

_Tulsa __–__ 497 miles_ was stamped on the very first sign I saw as I gunned the Blue Pumpkin onto Interstate 45 in Houston. That meant I had a little less than five hundred miles until … until I would have to come up with a new plan. For my own sanity I forbade myself from picturing what would happen when I ran out of road.

After days of seeing practically no one on the road aside from the occasional farmer's jalopy – the Paradis Boy Scout troop of course being the obvious exception – it scared me to be boxed in by six lanes of speeding cars and trucks. It didn't help that the Blue Pumpkin would only go fast enough when I floored it, and even then I stuck to the slow lane. I longed for US 90, where I could drive as wildly or as slowly as I pleased. When you build a huge freeway like that, you replace the open road with a conveyor belt. I intended to get off that interstate as soon as possible. In my opinion, everything was _too_ big in Texas.

Houston turned to a long stretch of nothing as afternoon died into night. Even after it had become completely dark, the air was still, hot and damp as a wet towel; each time I looked down to shift gears, the sweat stains on my shirt had gotten larger. My sunburn had already started to peel, and I picked at it whenever we got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

At a convenience store in Huntsville (426 miles to go) I did think to buy some more formula, so at least I wouldn't be taking a half-starved baby over state lines. I ate so much peanut butter and bread that I thought I'd be sick if I ever had to so much as look at a Skippy jar again. As bored as I was, what with no radio and no company to speak of, I only stopped to use the washroom and get gas; my joke was that if I put a bumper sticker on the Blue Pumpkin, it would read "I brake for yellow liquid." I guess that goes to show my state of mind at the time – I laughed at that for a long time.

I-45 ended at last in the concrete maze of Dallas (258 miles to go), and I felt my shoulders loosen as I followed signs onto the much less crowded US Route 75. I steered the Blue Pumpkin into the black emptiness of the plains. As far as I could tell, once we left Dallas behind there was nothing around for miles. I was almost afraid to sing or talk to myself, for fear that my voice would be snatched away by the wind and lost forever in the flat, inky darkness.

To pass the time, I made up wild stories in my head about where the other cars were going, and what was so important that made the drivers break the speed limit. When a big rig roared onto the road and nearly ran us off the road, to steady my nerves I thought up an elaborate story about the trucker being late for a big date with his fiancée Sue Ellen. I counted on Redbud to entertain herself. I'm ashamed to say it, but even after three months I was not completely in the habit of keeping a baby close to me at all times, like a purse. Not to mention keeping her amused all the time.

Around midnight, we were welcomed into the state of Oklahoma (178 miles to go) by a road sign with three bullet holes peppering the first "O."

Finally, when some drunk in front of me nearly swerved into my lane and I back into his, I knew I had to call it a night. I pulled over to the side of the freeway and fell asleep before I could even crawl into the back seat (154 miles and a night of dreamless sleep to go).

I woke with the sun and drove. I'll never forget that strange feeling of that morning, me waking up with a stomach like a half-squeezed tube of toothpaste, and not really knowing who I was anymore, and waiting for the sun's rays to warm me to life like a lizard. At some point I stopped noticing the smell of wet diaper.

The land was getting hillier, something I had not experienced along the entire Gulf Coast. Which is not exactly to say that my stomach was doing flips inside of me; but I had almost forgotten that not all the world was flat. I'd utterly forgotten about the new Indian Turnpike Highway, though, and made a lot of drivers behind me sore as I dug through the glove box for a few coins to pay the toll (93 miles and seventy-five cents to go).

By nine-thirty in the morning it must have been five hundred degrees in the shade. I'd have paid my bottom dollar for a cool glass of ice-water to press against my forehead.

We were coming up on Henryetta (66 miles to go!) when smoke started to curl out from under the hood of the Blue Pumpkin. The temperature gauge shot into the red, and the car started to make a thumping noise. I panicked. I veered over to the shoulder of the road, grabbed Redbud, and jumped out – fool that I was, I forgot to put the Pumpkin in reverse and had to dive right back in to park properly. The sun beat down on the back of my neck, and the hot asphalt burned my feet through my shoes.

After a few minutes of hopping from foot to foot I noticed that I couldn't smell burning or see any flames. What was wrong with my car? I tried in vain to remember Soda's long stories about the DX station he thought I found fascinating, but all the talk was fuzzy. I could only picture the way his eyes squinted when he was talking about a really tuff car – the way they did about anything he liked a lot. They'd squint, and then light up.

"Okay," I said aloud. (I had long since become accustomed to having conversations with myself.) "There's smoke – well, it looks more like steam – but no fire. Could just be overheated, in which case there's nothing to do but wait until she cools down."

I took a look at my surroundings. We were surrounded by land that was parched brown, and I had yet to see one redbud tree. In the distance, the road shimmered as if cool water had pooled there. (If a man had crawled up to me gasping for water, I would not even have lifted an eyebrow in surprise.) It didn't matter that we were less than a hundred miles from Tulsa: with a busted car, we may as well have been all the way back in Jacksonville. I plopped back down in the Blue Pumpkin, leaving the door open both as a signal for help and an attempt to coax in some fresh air as I changed Redbud's diaper. I picked at my peeling skin until it started to bleed.

I couldn't tell you how long we'd been sitting there when a truck stopped right next to the Blue Pumpkin – a big fuel truck. The driver must have seen me from a long ways away to stop that thing moving.

"Car trouble?" he shouted through the rolled-down passenger side window.

"No," I called back, "this just seemed like a good place to sunbathe."

"How long's she been overheated?" the trucker asked. "If you don't put some cool water into that radiator soon, the engine'll seize up and then you'll be shit outta luck – pardon my French."

"I've heard worse. All I have in here is a half a bottle of Enfamil, but I have yet to hear about the benefits of giving infant formula to a car." I picked up Redbud so he could see her.

"Climb in, I'll take y'all into Henryetta," he yelled. (I suppose your hearing isn't so good if you drive a big truck around all day.) "There ain't too much to see there, but they'll have a spare grease monkey and a tow truck."

"I'd probably pay more to haul her than she's worth," I said. But I grabbed my envelope of money and shoved it right down the back of my shorts, and just like that Redbud and I were riding high up in a big rig on our way to Henryetta. As the Blue Pumpkin got smaller and smaller in the distance, I reassured myself that no one in their right mind would stop in this heat to steal a broken-down car or any of the stuff inside it.

As I said earlier, I'm pretty suspicious of Prince Charming coming to save the day. Even if he happens to be a half-deaf trucker. But I was not about to pass up a ride in the only automobile that had passed by all morning. I don't know what you could call getting into a car with a complete stranger other than reckless – especially when the stranger drove a gasoline truck twenty miles over the speed limit and had bulging eyes that rolled crazily in his head when you saw him up close – but I have long since learned to roll with the punches, and we Lombard girls made it into Henryetta in one piece. Well, two pieces, I suppose.

The trucker dropped me off in front of the body shop in town ("town" being a bit of an exaggeration but I was not about to complain). Though I did my best to charm the mechanic, I knew there was no way I'd be able to afford whatever needed to get fixed if the engine had in fact seized up. For a few moments I just stood, Redbud on my hip, trying to figure out what to do. Without the Blue Pumpkin, I felt helpless.

Thankfully, there was a pay phone nearby. I attracted a few strange looks as I tried to dig a dime out of the envelope in my shorts with one hand while holding Redbud with my other; but I was far too hot and desperate to care what anyone really thought anymore.

"Operator," said a voice I pictured being attached to an old lady with curly pink hair.

"I'd like to place a call to Tulsa, please."

"Number, please."

I told her, and then set about digging in my shorts again for enough change to make a long-distance phone call. Punching in that particular phone number was still second nature to my fingers. I twisted the phone cord as I waited for someone to pick up.

"Hello?"

It was the first time I'd heard a familiar voice in I don't know how long. For the first time, it came to me that I was truly, at long last, almost _there_.

"Hi," I said. "It … it's me, Sandy. Look, I've decided to come back, only my car's broken down and I'm pretty close to broke. I'm stuck in Henryetta right now, and … I need to ask you a favor."


	9. Acts

Author's note: I have so much gratitude to Hahukum Konn for looking over this chapter, which has been languishing on my computer since August.

**Chapter Nine**

I only had about an hour to turn myself into a beauty queen before Soda and Steve came to pick us up. I had already put my hair up in a bouffant, and as I dusted on powder and blush I started to feel beautiful. There was something magical about sitting at Evie's old vanity table – you got the feeling that something big was about to happen. Girls like me and Evie were never crowned prom queen or anything like that, but there was some little part of me that kept hoping that things would be different at the Spring Fling, _just this once_.

"Sandy, will you help me put on my eyelashes once I'm done fixin' my hair?" Evie yelled from the bathroom down the hall.

"Uh-huh," I answered as I put on some blue eye shadow. I have never been able to put on eye makeup of any kind without my trap hanging open.

When I had finished with my face, I took off my old button-down and blue jeans and put on a slip. Then I stepped into my long, ice-blue dress, tossing its hanger onto the floor. I was fumbling with the zipper when Evie walked in, her hair in perfect curls. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"You're wearin' _that_?" she said.

"What's wrong with this dress?"

"Well, nothing's _wrong _with it. There wasn't anything wrong with it when you wore it last year, either."

I winced. "I was hopin' you wouldn't notice. My old man told me there was no way, hands-down, that he was going to pay for another dress when I already had this one. At least my mom took the sleeves off, though, so it ain't exactly the same…."

"Sleeves or no sleeves," Evie said, "it's still the same color. And I remember the lace on the bodice."

"Is it really all that obvious?"

Evie gave me a long look. "I mean _I _don't care that it's the same dress. And Soda won't even notice what you're wearing"– (my stomach twisted at the mention of his name) –"except when he's tryin' to get you to take it off. But you know how nasty the Rats can get – not to mention Socy girls. Not that you should give a hang, but you always take that stuff so personal."

"No, you're right," I groaned. "Do you have another dress I could borrow?"

"What am I, the Queen of England?" Evie said as she dug around in the drawers of the vanity. When she straightened up, she was holding a pair of scissors.

"Oh, no," I said, and actually backed away. "You ain't touching my dress."

"Desperate times, Lombard. Do you want that blasted crown or not?"

"Just don't do anything crazy," I grumbled as I squeezed my eyes closed. "'Desperate times' … who says stuff like that?"

I trusted Evie's sewing skills about as far as I could throw that vanity table, but I stood still and listened to the fabric being sheared apart. When I opened my eyes again, all the lace and then some had been chopped off.

"_Evie!_ What did you do to my dress?" I cried.

"What? It looks great!"

"It looks like I should be out on a street corner," I said as I turned around to inspect the damage in the mirror. Evie had hacked away at the skirt so that it barely reached past my fingertips.

"Oh, don't be so frigid, short skirts are in. Now hold still while I pin it."

"I should have worn my hair down," I said as I watched her hike it even higher. "It'd cover up more. I don't think I'll even be able to sit down."

"You'll be fine." Evie stood back to look at her work, and nodded approvingly. "Are you going to help me with my eyelashes or what?"

Mom had almost hit the roof when I told her I was getting ready at Evie's house – she being the kind of mother who loves taking about a million snapshots of her kids. But I'd told her it had to be Evie's house on account of it being more convenient for the boys to pick us up, and I'd promised to get a couple of photos of me in my dress. I think our camera was broken anyway, which is why she had given in. I wouldn't have let my mom see me looking as I did, not even if you paid me.

In any case, the real reason we were at Evie's house was because her folks kept a lot of booze in the house and for that reason would not be so likely to notice if some of it went missing.

We sat on Evie's bed and took turns swigging out of a bottle of bourbon, me holding the liquid in my mouth for as long as possible before swallowing. It burned my mouth, but not nearly so badly as it did my throat.

"This is awful," I said after a couple of sips.

Evie shrugged. "It's cheap, but at least it don't make you fat like beer. I think there might be some orange juice in the icebox if you want somethin' to chase with."

I shook my head: I could tough it out. After a little while my face started to feel warm. I wondered if I looked like I was blushing.

"I wonder if Cherry Valance'll be there tonight," I said out of the blue. I had already filled Evie in on what the Rats had told me in the bathroom at Jay's. "I'm sure she will be. No one misses Spring Fling if they have a shot at being Queen."

"Well, if she's not there, we'll all know what she's up to this weekend," Evie replied. She plucked up the wire hanger I had dropped on the floor and jabbed the air with it.

"Euhh!" I yelped, but I was laughing. "That's vulgar!"

Evie cackled. She's one of those kinds of people who don't act very different drunk from the way they do sober.

"Why do you even care about who gets Spring Fling Queen anyway?" she asked. "It doesn't mean anythin' at all."

"I don't know, it does to me," I said. "It ain't like I'm Miss School Spirit or anythin' like that. I just … well, with the Prom and Homecoming, they already have the nominees going into it. And it's always girls like Brenda Sinclair and Cherry Valance. But at Spring Fling, things are up in the air."

"I really couldn't care less about what a bunch of nerds and rich kids think of me," Evie said.

"It's more than that," I said. It was about wanting to be my own person, for once, but I didn't tell her that. Instead I fixed a few pins that were poking out of the hem of my dress.

"If they take Steve's car, me an' him get to use it tonight," Evie said.

"That is more than fine with me," I declared, a little too loudly. Immediately I wished I could take it back.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

What could I say? That the very thought of Sodapop Curtis, my sweet and handsome boyfriend, practically caused me to break out in a cold sweat? I quickly took another swig.

I was saved from having to explain myself by the blast of a car horn from outside that announced, as Evie shrieked, "our princes' arrival!"

"Where are my gloves?" I cried as I searched for them in vain. I guess even if I had ever found them, they wouldn't have done all that much for my modesty. We each chewed through a fistful of breath mints as we smoothed down stray hairs and stepped into our high heels.

Evie ran to the front door and flung it open. The boys were standing in their Sunday suits on the sagging porch; Steve looked a little rumpled, as though he had been dragged out of the car against his will at the last second.

"How do we look?" Evie asked, striking a pose.

"I hate when you wear that lipstick," Steve said bluntly. "That junk makes it feel like I'm kissing an octopus."

Evie swatted him. "It's lip _gloss_, stupid, and if you don't like the way it feels then you can keep your mouth to yourself tonight."

"Can I keep my nose to myself too? Did you go swimming in your perfume or what?"

"Go get my coat, Steve," Evie ordered. "The lady at Spencer's said that this is an exact imitation of Chanel, though it is hardly your business what I go swimming in. And for your information, that hair oil of yours don't exactly smell like a bouquet of roses."

"It is too my business if my car has to smell like armpits for the next week," Steve griped. As he brushed past us to get to the closet, he thrust a clear plastic box into Evie's hands. Inside the box was a pin-on corsage.

To his merit, Soda did not actually laugh at Evie's antics although his eyes were dancing. He smiled at us and actually bowed. He said, "Y'all look a coupla movie stars or somethin'. Me an' Steve musta used up all our luck to go out with you girls tonight – we ought to stay inside for the rest of the year, or else we might get hit by a bus."

Evie beamed back at him. Though she would have never wanted Soda for herself, no one could ever resist Sodapop if he decided he wanted to charm them.

"Hi," I said. I thought to myself, _There, that wasn't so bad, _and convinced myself that I had looked him full-on in the eye_._

"I didn't know what color your dress was, so I got you a white flower," Soda said as he fumbled with the plastic tabs of his box. "Since that's what I got last time …"

"For Pete's sake, let me do it," I said as I all but snatched it out of his hands, flipped open the tabs, and slipped the elastic band of the corsage onto my wrist. Evie raised her eyebrows; though she had her own peculiar standards of how to treat a guy, I had clearly crossed a line. Soda looked as though someone had kicked him.

"It's pretty," I added quickly. "Thanks."

"Yeah," said Soda. He was still looking at me funny.

Thankfully, Steve came back with Evie's rhinestone-covered jacket just then and we all piled into his battered old car. The night of the Spring Fling, the crickets were chirping loud enough to drive a person crazy.

We went to Jay's for supper – _because we _always_ go to Jay's, even when he orders the weirdest thing on the planet it's always the same _– and I was grateful we were seated at a booth because my dress really did come up too high. I mean, the vinyl stuck to the backs of my thighs. I mostly kept my eyes on my food, except when I was talking to Evie. When Steve pulled a bottle of vodka from out of his suit jacket, I let him pour a lot into my cup of Diet Pepsi. I figured that even if I was having more than usual, I was eating food, which would absorb some of the liquor; and besides it was okay to get high every once in a while if I wanted to. I wasn't half as bad about it as most of the girls I knew, anyhow.

The thing about our school dances is, everybody goes to them and everybody goes soused. The marching band kids, Key Club, the FFA, everybody – except Soda, who never drinks. I don't think anyone else could have any fun if they noticed how limply the streams of colorful crêpe paper drooped on the gym walls, or how bad people were at dancing. Maybe they wouldn't be brave enough to try to try anything with their dates. I don't know. As it was, people were loaded and things were swinging.

As I walked into the gym on Soda's arm, girls started whispering and someone even pointed. Though part of me knew that wasn't good, I convinced myself that at least people were talking. Me and Soda went over to the table where some kids from student council were taking ballots for Spring Fling King and Queen. I wrote down _Sodapop Curtis & Sandy Lombard_ in block letters.

The band was good and Soda was fun to dance with, even though I myself had three left feet and still do. Neither of us liked the slow songs, so during those ones we'd weave through the crowd and talk to people. I caught a glimpse of Cherry Valance over on the other side of the gym. She looked pretty much the same as always.

At some point they stopped the band and one of the girls from the student council table took the microphone. She said, "As you know, we crown our King and Queen based on who has received the most votes. We don't nominate people beforehand, so – anything goes."

"Randy Adderson for Spring Fling Queen!" someone shouted.

The girl opened a small envelope and took out a small piece of paper. She announced, "Tonight's King of the Spring Fling is … Sodapop Curtis!"

Soda jumped onto the stage, whooping all the while. I couldn't let myself think it. It couldn't be that …

The girl onstage looked down at the piece of paper in her hand and frowned slightly. "This is pretty unusual … but this year's Spring Fling King and Queen did not come as a couple. We tallied up all the votes and one boy and one girl got the most. After all, anything goes…. So now I would like to present to you your Queen of the Spring Fling … Bobbie Vandergrift!"

The crowd buzzed as a girl in a long white dress took the stage. She was wearing a pearl necklace that was probably worth more than everything I owned. The music swelled, and that girl looked genuinely happy as the plastic tiara was set in her hair. Like she wasn't used to having something that good happen to her.

I pushed my way through the crowd and ran out of the gym. I had to slow to a walk after a few paces, though, since my heels made it hard to run.

"Sandy! Sandy, wait up," Soda panted as he caught up to me in the hallway. "Look, it was a fluke. I reckon a bunch of the guys just voted for me as a joke."

Sylvia Ballard was practically necking with some guy I only knew by sight. I ignored them and Soda, and kept on marching through the hall.

"That's great. That's really just swell," I said to Soda. I was fighting back tears, but did my best to keep my head up high. "Do you realize that people like us never get chosen for this kind of thing? People must have been looking at us. And they passed me up. I wanted it so much, and you got it, and you're treating it like it's nothing."

"It _is_ nothing," he said. He cupped my face with his hands. "Shoot, that girl don't hold a candle to you."

"Shoot nothin'," I said and shrugged.

"Nobody thought she was my date, Sandy. Everyone knows you're my girl. Come on, let's cut out of here."

I don't know why that calmed me down, but it did. Maybe, I thought as I walked with him, marrying him wouldn't be too bad after all. At least he thought I was something special.

As we walked to the parking lot, I asked Soda how we were supposed to go home or anywhere else for that matter: Evie and Steve had in fact taken the car, and were probably at the park getting more familiar with its backseat. Just then, a car horn blasted and Soda and I were bathed in headlights.

It was that Rick kid again; he was leaning out of the passenger window of the car shining us down. He shouted, "Soda! Are you comin' or what?"

"Hang on a second," Soda hollered back.

"I thought you weren't goin' to the drag race," was all I could think to say.

Soda grinned nervously at me. "Well, seeing as we don't have a car or anything …"

I snapped. I said, diplomatically enough I think, "Fine. Go if you want. Have a fun time."

"Aw, come on, Sandy," Soda said. "Why have you been actin' so weird tonight? It's like everything I do is wrong."

"You knew Steve and Evie would take the car, so you fixed it so we would have to go to the race now," I said. I started to shake with anger and the feeling that I had been in the right all along. "Even though you said you wouldn't go. Even though I _hate _those races."

"Hey Sodapop, we ain't got all night!" someone said.

"Just hang on," Soda called back. He said to me, "I didn't fix nothin'. Look, I'll ask if they can drop you off at your house. If you're still mad about the Spring Fling Queen thing–"

"It's not about that!" I screamed. "You never listen to me! You get everybody except me! You _get _everything except me!"

"Fine!" Soda yelled. I had seen his eyes blaze like that before, but never at me. "Man, I wouldn't want you there anyway. I wouldn't want every guy checkin' you out – though the way you're dressed, I wouldn't blame them if they did."

So he _had _noticed the dress. Without another word I turned on my heel and stormed away. I guess Soda must have gone off with Rick in that car, for he didn't try to follow me.

I headed straight for the ladies' room. The Rats were in front of the sinks, spraying their hair as usual. I paid them no mind as I collapsed onto a toilet seat and began to bawl.

"Sandy? What's wrong?" Kathy asked. She put down her can of hairspray and wedged herself into the stall with me.

"Me – and Soda – got into a fight," I sobbed. I was gasping so hard for air, it was hard to make words come out. "And everyone – thinks – I'm – a – slut–"

"Men are scum," Kathy said as she rubbed my back. "Forget about him."

Denise rolled her eyes as she told Kathy, "Can it. You sound like a hooker who's been around the block too many times."

Kathy nodded dopily. She kept on rubbing my back though, which was nice of her.

"We're about to head on over to the after-party," Denise said to me. "Why don't you come along? It'll be fun, and it'll help take your mind off things."

My breathing was becoming steadier. I said one of the only sensible things I said that night, which was, "I probably just oughtta go home. And put some real clothes on."

"No one would think twice about that dress if you just wore it with some attitude," Denise said with a smirk. "Live a little."

We found Denise and Kathy's dates – they were a couple of hoods I'd never even seen before – and drove to the party. I was nervous about going to a party where possibly the only people I would know were the Rats, but at the same time it was strangely exciting.

The house we stopped in front of wasn't a West Side mansion, but it was certainly the nicest house I'd ever been in. Somebody had said it belonged to a guy called Gene Otterstrom. None of us knew who he was.

When we walked in, a nervous-looking boy – this had to be Gene – asked us if we would please not smoke inside and if we could possibly contribute to the beer fund. Denise's date (or was it Kathy's?) gave him a stare that plainly said that we would do whatever we liked.

There were two kegs going and it wasn't long before someone was pressing a red plastic cup into my hands. To tell you the truth, I don't even know how much beer I drank. I danced with Denise and Kathy to the fast songs, and at some point I tripped and somehow we all ended up on the floor in a heap. I laughed so hard I thought I wouldn't ever get up.

Then a slow one came on, and I found myself in the arms of some nice-looking boy who was wearing a sweater. I guess he had helped me to my feet. Not that my feet were of any help by that point – to hold myself up, I had to put my arms around his neck. Then I lay my head on the boy's chest.

And then I was in a bedroom with a slanted wood ceiling, and my head kept bumping into the headboard, and all I can really recall thinking was _Well, at least I didn't have to make the first move with this one_. The ceiling was slanted wood. I remember that vividly.

And then I went downstairs without putting my slip back on and held some girl's hair as she threw up in the kitchen sink.

Sooner or later, I found myself grabbing onto the fence outside my house instead of the boy in the sweater. I don't know how I managed to get there.

"I'm my own girl," I murmured to myself over and over as I slowly made my way up the stairs of my porch, into my house, and to my room, where I fell asleep without even taking my shoes off.

I woke up at noon the next day with the first and only hangover I've ever had. And though my parents are not in the running for being the most observant parents of all time, even they noticed when I slunk into the kitchen with my eyes half-shut. I caught hell, and by the time I was allowed use the phone again it was too late to tell Soda, or Evie or anyone, what had happened at the party.

On Monday, Soda dropped by school at lunchtime and apologized to me for being a jerk about the drag race. I swore up and down that I would never let Evie touch my clothes again. He didn't bring up the subject of marriage, so I figured it was all in the past. We would be okay, Soda and me.


	10. Revelations

Author's note: This is a (belated) present for Queen Jane Approximately, for her eighteenth birthday. :)

**Chapter Ten**

For the record, I felt as guilty as Judas about what had happened. More than that: I was ashamed. Sure, Soda wasn't perfect, but I was far worse. It took the party at Gene Otterstrom's to show me what the whole high school already knew. But there was nothing to do except try to put it out of my head.

My period always did come whenever I least expected it, so I didn't think anything was wrong with me until I threw up every day for a week straight. Even then I thought I had just come down with something, until I realized that most girls don't grow a whole bra size in a month when they can't keep down their breakfast. I carried around a tampon with me as a kind of good-luck charm; but I guess my maternal instinct had already kicked in, for I knew in my bones that sometimes things had to go the exact wrong way.

You can get used to living in fear, after a while – like 'most anything else, as the clerk in Sneads would say. After the first few minutes and days went by without anybody else catching on, I realized that even though someone could still find out at any second, I could hide it. I always kept my bedroom door locked when I was dressing. And I never went to the park with Soda anymore – even if he didn't know what it meant that my nipples changed color, I took no chances.

I thought about going to Mississippi and having the operation. If I'd had my own car I think I would have done it. But I didn't have a car so it didn't matter; and I would rather be pregnant forever than ask Soda – let alone my parents – to drive me. I figured that sooner or later, I would just have to leave town for a little while – take a bus to Oklahoma City, or somewhere, and have the baby, and come back home as if nothing had happened. Above all, I told myself, I would not let my folks know. Even as my belly got bigger and I went around in pullovers in August, I kept my mouth shut.

One night in September – I was about four months in by then –, I went to the football game with Soda and Evie and Steve. It was fun, or at least as much fun as I was in the habit of having, and Soda got me home in time for curfew. When he dropped me off he got a kiss on the lips from me. Right then, things was still business as usual for Sodapop.

A few hours later, I got a call. Well, actually, my daddy was the one who managed to stumble to the phone first. I couldn't blame him for sounding hacked off when he banged on my door and told me to pick up.

"Soda?" I said sleepily. "Wha's goin' on?"

"Hi …" Soda said, and then he started to cry. "Ponyboy ran off."

"What happened?" I said.

Soda choked out something I couldn't make out.

"Soda, Soda, go to sleep, babe," I mumbled into the phone. "Just get some sleep. Everything will be okay in the morning."

But of course it wasn't. It was all over the next day's papers that Bob Sheldon had been killed and the suspects were still at large. I was as shocked as anybody to see photographs of Soda's kid brother and quiet Johnny Cade on the front page.

Steve gave me a ride to Soda's house. I practically lived there for the next three days. Although my cooking has never been anything to brag about, I was quick with a can opener. Most of the time, we sat together silently in the living room. Soda's older brother Darry would sit in the armchair, ready to pounce on the telephone if it rang. I sat on the couch next to Soda with his arm wrapped around my shoulders. When Darry and Soda's friends stopped in to ask whether we'd heard anything, the brothers would make it clear that they wanted to be left in peace. I could tell Darry didn't want me around either; but then, he was having a real rough time. Soda told me that he had gotten into a fight with Ponyboy the night everything went to pieces. Soda was, of course, also a wreck. I don't know how he could not be. I don't know how Darry and Soda both got all that time off from work but in the shape they were in, they wouldn't have been of much use at work anyhow.

When we made Darry get some sleep with the promise that we'd wake him if anyone called, I would lie with my head in Soda's lap – I was very careful to not let my belly touch him – and he'd lean over me so that our faces met. We'd kiss and everything would be okay, if only for just that moment.

The third night I came home after curfew, my parents were waiting up for me as I let myself into the house. Ever since the Spring Fling they had been keeping a closer eye on me; but still, it wasn't like them to perch on our old couch until late into the night. The low light from the lamps cast shadows over the furniture and my folks. Somehow the bakery-box pink paint of the sitting room walls seemed foreign, and menacing.

"Where have you been?" my daddy asked.

"At Sodapop's. Darry was there too," I said, and started to head for my room.

"Sandy, I don't want you spending so much time with that boy," Mom said.

"We've worked hard to get away from neighborhoods like that," Daddy said. "Away from that kind of riffraff."

It was like something out of those old JD pictures. I half-expected my parents to say, _Just kidding!_, and go back to being themselves. Real life wasn't the movies.

"Soda didn't kill nobody," I said.

"Anybody," my mom said in a voice like a taut rubber band.

"He's as much riffraff as I am. Geez, goodnight," I said. Without thinking, I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my sweater as I started again for my room.

"_Hold it right there."_

With a huff, I turned to face them, ready to sass them something awful. And then I realized my mistake.

"You're– oh, my God," Mom moaned, and then she crumpled into herself.

A part of me wanted to yell to high heaven that whatever they were thinking, it wasn't true. That I didn't even know what sex _was_. But at four months, it was hopeless.

"That _hood_," Dad said.

"Sodapop is not a hood," I said. I was not about to explain that the boy was not the same person as my boyfriend, but I didn't want him to go down with me. "He goes to work, just like you, Daddy. And he wants to marry me."

My dad barked out a laugh. "I'd just as soon kill you myself."

There is not a whole lot to say after your father tells you he would kill you. I stood in the sitting room like a convict waiting to hear the judge's sentence. It was silent, maddeningly silent, except for my mom's heaving sobs.

"Go to your room," Daddy told me. "Go and pack your things."

"Why? Where am I going?" I asked.

"I said _go to your room!_" he screamed.

Stunned, I went to my room. As I packed, I heard my father talking on the telephone – to Mrs. Lombard, as it turned out. I could still hear Mom sobbing in the sitting room.

My father opened the door of my room and stood in the frame.

"Tomorrow," he said conversationally, "I'm going to put you on a bus to Jacksonville, where you will stay with your grandmother until this is over. You will obey her. And if you get off that bus before Jacksonville, so help me God, no one in this family will ever speak to you again. You hear me, Sandy?"

I nodded dumbly.

"You are not to use the phone or leave the house. You hear me?"

I nodded again. He left.

I sat on my bed next to my suitcase and stared at the wall like it was my ace in the hole.

It was a long time before my mother stopped crying and went to her bedroom.

I kept staring at the wall until I heard my father's snores. Then I crept into the kitchen and phoned the Curtises' house.

"H'lo?" It was Darry. I had forgotten how late it was, but I couldn't be polite right then.

"Is Soda there?" I blurted out.

Darry sighed. "Yeah, sure. One second."

He yelled at Soda to come pick up. I heard him say, "Keep it short, little buddy. The line needs to be open in case anybody calls."

_Oh, Lord, _I thought. "Anybody" meant two boys who were wanted for murder – or the cops.

"Hi, beautiful," Soda said faintly. I'd never heard him sound so tired and beat-down.

"Hi," I half-whispered back. "You ain't heard nothin' yet?"

"No," Soda said. "I got a feeling that Dallas Winston knows more than he's lettin' on, but he won't talk."

"It's gonna be just fine," I said. "Pony and Johnny'll come on home, and everything's gonna work out fine." And that's when I started to lose it because nothing _would_ ever be okay again, not really.

"Sandy? What's the matter?"

For a minute I just cried. As if I couldn't feel any guiltier, Soda murmured things like, "Sandy, Sandy, shh honey, it'll be okay."

Finally, I pulled myself halfway together and said, "Look, Soda, I've got to tell you something, and I'm so sorry I have to do it now."

"What is it?"

"I'm … late. I'm four months late, and I tried to hide it, but I just can't anymore."

"Late? But we never …" Soda's voice trailed off as he realized what I was saying.

"Soda, I'm so sorry," I said, and now that the words were out I couldn't stop them. "It was a mistake, a stupid mistake. I was loaded after the Spring Fling, I didn't know myself. I never meant for it to happen, Soda you've gotta believe me. And now I have to go live with my grandmother in Florida. I wish so bad I could take it all back…. Sodapop?"

_Click._

I sat for I don't know how long on the kitchen floor rocking myself and cradling the phone to my chest.

A furious beating on the front door – "Sandy? Sandy!"

Dad got there first.

"You bastard! You son of a bitch!" he yelled through the door. "I'll kill you!"

"Stop it!" I pleaded. "Just let me talk to him. Please."

When he didn't budge, I slipped under his arm and out the door.

The truck's engine was still rumbling as Soda paced back and forth in the otherwise-empty street. His face was stony, but his hair, normally so carefully slicked back, stuck out at odd angles as though he had tried to yank it off of his skull.

"Who is it, Sandy?" he demanded. "Who's the father?"

I shook my head, and tears and snot streamed down my face. "I told you, I was so drunk … it was at a party in no-man's land. No one you know – it wasn't one of our kind."

"I wasn't good enough for you? You didn't want no guy who wanted to marry you, you had to have somebody who'd use you and then laugh about it later? Maybe it was more than one guy? Maybe," Sodapop said, and he was yelling now, "you've been doing everyone all over town, and the only reason you feel bad now is because you got caught!"

"You know that's not true," I said. I was starting to shake.

"Then why'd ya do it?" Soda lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

"Don't smoke," I said.

"Why? Bad for the baby?"

"_Don't,_" I said and set my jaw. "And you never laid a finger on me. You've made lots of other girls before, you _used_ them! Do you think they're tramps because they wanted it? And we didn't come close. God, I don't even know what I wanted, but it wasn't that. And it sure wasn't this."

"Sandy … whatever I did wrong, I'll fix it," Soda said, and now he was pleading with me instead of the other way around.

"I'm sorry," was all I could say, and then I about broke down. "I'm so sorry."

And then my father came outside with a pistol in his hand. He grabbed me by the arm and half-dragged me back into the house. I was too exhausted to fight back anymore, against anything.

The next morning I left town. From then on, I didn't speak to anyone from home, except when I phoned my parents to tell them I was keeping Redbud after all. They said that me and my bastard child had better stay in Jacksonville, for people still came up to them in the supermarket to tell them that they raised a hero for a son and a whore for a daughter.

x x x x x x x

And as Steve Randle's car coasted up to the street corner in Henryetta, I knew my past was about to hurtle into the present like a comet headed straight for earth.

Evie leaned out of the open window on the driver's side.

"Get in already," she said.


End file.
